פרשה: כי תשא · עלייה: חמישי (הוד)

ה׳ ה׳ קל רחום וחנון, "The Lord, the Lord, G'd is merciful and gracious;" Our sages in Rosh Hashana 17 explain the repetition of this attribute of Mercy as the difference between invoking this attribute before man has sinned and invoking it after he has sinned. The Rosh, (Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel) questions why man should be in need of mercy prior to his having sinned. He answers that seeing G'd is already aware that man will sin at some future date, man is already in need of G'd's attribute of Mercy. He suggests an alternative meaning according to which the Torah speaks of someone who contemplates idolatry only with his mind without as yet committing an overt act of any kind. G'd's attribute of Mercy would "call out" to such a person to desist before he performed a punishable idolatrous deed. I must confess that I cannot understand either of the Rosh's two explanations. If man is in need of the attribute of Mercy because of penalties for sins not yet committed, why did G'd create him in the first place, seeing He was aware that he would sin? Was G'd really prepared to judge man for sins he had not committed so that He had to invoke the attribute of Mercy on man's behalf? Concerning a person who contemplates the sin of idolatry, but who had not yet committed an overt act, why would he be considered as not yet having committed a sin seeing that when it comes to idolatry even the intent makes one liable to punishment?

I believe that a person is in need of G'd's attribute of Mercy even before he has committed a sin unless he had acquired merits through the performance of G'd's commandments. The merit acquired by performance of positive commandments entitles a person to have G'd invoke the attribute of Mercy on his behalf. Examination of Deut. 11,13 will demonstrate my point. The Torah writes: "It will be as a result of your hearkening diligently to My commandments ….and perform them,…I will give the rain of your land in its season…and you will gather in your harvest, etc." This shows that as a result of performing a good deed one will become the recipient of G'd's goodness. If, on the other hand, a person has been prevented from performing G'd's commandments by circumstances beyond his control he will neither receive the reward promised by the Torah for the performance of the commandments nor will he be punished for non-performance. How then would G'd's Mercy become evident? This is why the Torah refers to G'd's Mercy as something that needs to be invoked even before a person commits a sin. This "Mercy" will assure such a person of a harvest, etc., even if he had been unable to establish a claim to G'd's goodness. In addition, G'd promised Moses that He would invoke His attribute of Mercy even on behalf of people guilty of sinful conduct.

G'd informed Moses of another aspect of the attribute of Mercy by telling him [by means of the repetition Ed.] that a sinner would not forfeit any of G'd's goodness which he had been in line for before he sinned, and before G'd invoked His attribute of Mercy on his behalf. This thought has helped me make peace with the fact that we observe the wicked who have been spared through G'd's attribute of Mercy continue to prosper to the same degree as they prospered before G'd invoked the attribute of Mercy on their behalf.

ילך נא ה׳ בקרבנו, "let G'd go in our midst, etc." How could Moses say this seeing G'd had told him in 33,3 that He would not go up in their midst precisely because they were a stiff-necked people? Here Moses tries to use the stiff-necked nature of the people as a reason for asking G'd to go up in their midst? In 33,3 G'd had warned Moses that if He were to go up in the midst of the people this would lead to their destruction. How could Moses take such a chance? Another difficulty in our verse is why Moses had to ask for something G'd had already been prepared to do as we know from 33,17: "I will also do this thing for you?"

The matter will become clearer when we look at the names for G'd Moses used in the various verses. In our verse here Moses requests that G'd should go up in the midst of the people in His manifestation as א־ד־נ־י, whereas in 33,3 G'd had warned Moses that He would not go in their midst in His manifestation as י־ה־ו־ה. At first glance this reinforces our problem seeing that I have written that Moses wanted G'd to accompany the Israelites in His capacity as the attribute of Mercy, and here he seems to request a harsher attribute of G'd.

Perhaps the insights Moses had gained after G'd had revealed to Him His Thirteen Attributes had led to Moses' appreciation that if G'd were to apply only His attribute of Mercy to the people, ignoring the attribute of Justice completely, the people would never survive the long trip because they were so stiff-necked [and would commit too many sins for G'd to overlook permanently. Ed.] Moses therefore reconsidered and asked G'd to provide the kind of presence which would not allow the sinners to count on His Mercy as if it were an inexhaustible attribute. He expressed this by saying ילך נא א־דני, i.e. a mixture of Mercy and Justice. He did so in order for the occasional sinners not to become confirmed sinners when they would perceive G'd as waiving punishment for their sins. When Moses added: וסלחת לעונינו, וג׳ he asked for the appropriate attribute of G'd, i.e. the addition of the attribute of Mercy to the attribute of Justice he had mentioned first. We observe something similar in Exodus 23,21, where G'd had explained that an angel represents only the attribute of Justice and cannot temper Justice with Mercy. Moses now realised how important it was to be under the guidance of both attributes of G'd simultaneously.

ונחלתנו, "and take us to be Your inheritance." Moses asked that G'd never exchange the Jewish people for some other people but that they should remain His "inheritance" forever.